


i hurt myself by hurting you

by songs



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Apologies that were years in the making, First Kiss, Four years after Chimera Arc, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-22
Updated: 2014-07-22
Packaged: 2018-02-09 23:05:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2001447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songs/pseuds/songs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I tried to do a lot of things, but I mostly just thought of you.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	i hurt myself by hurting you

“I’m sorry.” Gon’s lips trail downwards. “I’m  _sorry._ ”

Killua laughs, but it escapes as something hollow.

“You’ve said that already. It—”

“I’m  _sorry,”_ Gon says, again, pressing a kiss to his jaw. Killua shivers at the contact, at the feel of the other boy’s fingers tracing along the nape of his neck.

“Gon,” he says, hating the hitch in his voice. Gon pauses where he is, and Killua goes on. “It’s been  _years,_ Gon. It’s okay.”

Gon’s hands fall from his neck, his touch skimming along the bone-temples of Killua’s shoulders, the hollows of his elbows, the fists of his hands— _oh._ It takes Killua a moment to register the sharp feeling of his nails digging into his palms.

_Oh._

“Is it?” Gon asks, quietly. Too quietly for  _Gon Freecss, star hunter_. Too quietly for Gon Freecss _,_ the boy Killua really thought he knew, once upon a time. “Is it really okay, Killua?”

Gon gently strokes his hands until the fists unfurl on their own. Killua almost laughs.  _Muscle-memory._ Four years is a long time for a heart, but nothing at all, for a hand.

“It…”

“I’m sorry,” Gon repeats, for a third time. For a  _hundredth time._ Killua has lost count, by now. And what breaks him is that he  _believes_ Gon. He believes every apology, but he is too afraid, too much of a coward to take any of them. To keep any of them. “I didn’t know. But I should’ve. I’m sorry. And…”

He trails off, and Killua lets the silence sink in. It’s a soft thing, silence. Silence has nothing cruel to say, but nothing kind to give, either. Killua has always likened himself to silence, where Gon is more like a song.

But all songs end.

 _Everything ends._ He tries to stifle the thought; Alluka would chide him for being morbid. And he would have nothing to argue.

 _But_ —

“If it’s alright with you,” Gon murmurs, holding Killua’s hands in his own. “If you’d let me…I want to make it up to you.”

Two boys, two beds, a dingy hotel room. Four years apart, four days reunited. Two boys, seventeen years old, but still child-young, in these broken sort of ways.

“It was my fault, too…” Killua swallows. They’ve been over this so many times, but it keeps coming back to haunt them. “I should’ve said—”

“When you love someone,” Gon interrupts, and Killua’s heart forgets to beat. “They don’t need to speak for you to listen.”

 _Love._  The word blares with all of the unsaid.  _Love, love, love_ —

“Oh?” Killua asks, the color returning to his voice, and then to his skin. “What have you been up to in the past four years, huh? What do you know about stuff like that, idiot—”

“I was thinking of you,” Gon says simply, the old brightness resurfacing. “For years. I tried to do a lot of things, but I mostly just thought of you.”

The tentative, cheeky smile falls from Killua’s face. He can’t quite pinpoint just when Gon leans in, or when he follows, and he just barely catches the question of:

“Can I kiss you, Killua?” Gon’s eyes slant to his mouth. “Is that okay?”

The words shape like a soul between them. And Killua remembers:  _It has nothing to do with you, it doesn’t matter to you, I’m doing this on my own._ He remembers:  _I’ll see you later, we’ll always be friends, right?,_ and  _I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry_ —

He remembers:  _I’m glad I met you, let’s stick together, you are not allowed to die._

He remembers:  _It has to be Killua._

And he says, a breath above a whisper: “It’s okay.”

For the first time in a long time, he means it.


End file.
